$10,000 a head: Radicals put a bounty on UK journalist in Ukraine

Ukrainian troops guard a checkpoint near the town of Slavyansk in eastern Ukraine May 2, 2014 (Reuters / Baz Ratner) / Reuters

Ukrainian radicals have put a bounty out on RT stringer Graham Phillips, who is currently working in the east of the country. Also a camera-man working for RT in Odessa has been informed about being on the radicals' radar.

“Myself I have received threats putting a bounty on my head
to be kidnapped and that has been offered from [the city of]
Dnepropetrovsk, as I understand, connected to the Right
Sector,” Graham Phillips confirmed while reporting live from
the city of Slavyansk.

The Right Sector reportedly offered $10,000 for the capture of
“a Russian spy.”

The ultra-nationalists also have a cameraman working for RT in
the violence-gripped city of Odessa on their radar, RT's
Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan confirmed in a statement.

“Our camera-man-stringer in Odessa received a call from the
Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). [They] said that he is now on
the radar of the Right Sector. [His] former colleagues gave him
up. SBU said that the Right Sector now has all his phone numbers
and addresses. They gave him up for his anti-Maidan views which
he never kept secret,” Simonyan posted on her Twitter.

RT's Editor-in-Chief’s statement comes after the channel’s
correspondent Irina Galushko said on her Twitter that the
camera-man she is working with had received threats.

On May, 4, RT’s correspondent posted:

cam'man i'm working with just informed his addresses and
contacts are in hands of Security Service, Right Sector and
Nat'l Guard #Odessa

Foreign journalists working in Ukraine have been subject to an
unfolding witch-hunt in Ukraine with assaults and intimidation of
reporters intensifying recently.

In one of the latest incidents Lifenews journalists Julia
Shustraya and Mikhail Pudovkin, were abducted by armed Ukrainian Security Service
members, after they filmed an interview with one of the leaders
of the pro-federalization movement in Ukraine. They were detained
and later deported to Russia.

On April 21, Simon Ostrovsky, a journalist for the New York-based
Vice News, was also detained by self-defense forces in Slavyansk.
He was held captive for three days and questioned. He was then
released.

Several days after, on April, 24, the SBU said a Russian and a Belorussian
national, both employees of the Russian NTV channel have been
detained in the city of Pershotravensk in the Dnipropetrovsk
region.

On April, 26, the heads of Russia's major TV corporations,
including RT, called on human rights organizations to “defend the
professional rights of journalists working in Ukraine.”

“Ukraine’s Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk and
other regions are witnessing the ruthless suppression of civil
liberties on a daily basis. Journalists are being threatened with
their lives if they continue to report from Ukraine,” the
letter reads, signed by the heads of All-Russia State Television
and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK), NTV, REN TV, Channel 5,
RT and News Media.

“The new Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly taken illegal
actions barring our staff journalists covering the Ukraine crisis
from performing their professional duties and violating their
human dignity,” the letter said.